Chemistry
by Ember Nickel
Summary: You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Pity nobody told the Shiz administration.


Contrary to some of the wilder rumors floating around Shiz campus, Professor Porcina was a human. A short woman, not particularly attractive, she entered the classroom in a futile effort to assert her authority in the classroom.

This failed rather miserably.

"Where's Doctor Bombyx?" a student demanded immediately. Porcina blinked very quickly at the girl's abnormal skin tone, but quickly focused on the chalkboard. It wasn't becoming behavior to stare at the students, after all.

"The Highly Magnified doctor has gone on an indefinite leave of absence," Porcina replied tersely.

There were some low grumblings throughout the classroom, the exact words imperceptible.

"Are we going to continue alchemy?" inquired another girl, this one excessively perky in the substitute's opinion.

"No, you are not. Such magic is far beyond the normal student's capacity-and the drool oozing onto the desks of several of you asleep in the back row suggests that the normal student is far beyond you."

"But I've been taking advanced courses," she continued, undeterred.

"Excuse me," the professor continued icily, "but I am teaching this class. The administration has decided that a more pragmatic class would better serve your educational purposes, and as such, this is your first day of Chemistry."

This did not provoke a reaction.

"Unfortunately, a focus on esoteric minutiae has woefully impaired even your basic knowledge of this critical science. Therefore, we'll need to begin with a very simple topic. The states of matter." Very deliberately, she reached under the desk and brought out a simple cup of water, which she held up to the class. "Now, can anyone tell me what matter is?"

One of the students in the back raised a lanky hand. Porcina was pleasantly surprised that he had been paying enough attention to understand what was going on, and called on him.

"Nothing, Prof," he drawled. "What's the matter with you?" As if his "wit" was the most hilarious thing in Oz, he exchanged high-fives with some of his supine peers.

Unwilling to give him any more attention than necessary, she continued lecturing. "Everything is matter: solids like this desk, liquids like this drink, and gas like the air we breathe."

A girl in a wheelchair raised her hand. "Excuse me, ma'am?" she said daintily.

"Yes, my dear?"

"Did you say _everything_ is matter?"

"Yes, indeed," she smiled.

"What about things that can't be seen?"

"Well," the substitute said, "That's an excellent question. At the moment, the room is full of gas. We can't see it, but we still know it's there, so that is considered a type of matter."

"How about a God?"

"…Perhaps we can discuss this after class. I believe the biology substitutes have some various evolutionary-"

"Biology substitutes?" interrupted the green girl. "What about Animal Studies?"

"The faculty members are engaging in a retreat to review new curricula."

"And let me guess," she muttered, "it's not about monkeys. I don't understand what everyone has against the poor monkeys."

Somewhat more frustrated by then, Porcina continued. "Yes. Now. As I just stated, there are three states of matter. But does matter need to stay in one state? Or can it change between them?"

Silence.

"Come now, just guess, you have a fifty-fifty shot of being right."

"Or being wrong," muttered the joker in the back.

Irritated, she pointed to a boy at random. "You. Guess."

"What was the question again?"

"Can matter change between states?"

"Um…No?"

"Incorrect." She tried to remain calm. "When does something go from liquid to solid? Or liquid to gas?"

No response.

"If I were to set this cup out in the sun," she nodded at the desk, "what would happen?"

"It'd burn up," retorted the kid in the back, "but how would you get it out to the sun in the first place?"

"Out in the sun_light_."

"Oh. Dunno."

Porcina paced. "What about snow? What happens to snow in the spring?"

"It melts!" exclaimed the overly-enthusiastic girl, much to the surprise of the entire class.

"Very good," Porcina replied. "And what does it become?"

This had apparently exceeded her entire intellectual output to that point, so it was left to the reluctant volunteer to stammer an answer. "W-water?"

"Correct!" As the proud student beamed, Porcina wrote on the blackboard: an arrow went from "solid" to "liquid", with "melting" printing above it. Then she drew another arrow, from "liquid" back to "solid". "Now what should go here? What's the reverse process? What is it called when a liquid object becomes a solid? Like water to ice?" The students' blank faces forced her to continue the interrogation.

"…Freezing?" suggested the wheelchair-bound girl.

"Very good!" She duly labeled the arrow.

The insubordinate in the back raised his hand. "Uh, I gotta question."

This entirely uncharacteristic display of passion for the lifestyle of the true academic would certainly have shocked the class into silence had they not already been in that state. "Proceed."

"You just said if you took a solid and turned it into a liquid, it would be melting, right?"

"Correct."

"But what if you took a solid and turned it into a gas?"

"Don't be ridiculous," snapped the student of chromatic eccentricity, "that would never happen."

"Actually, it can, in the case of dry ice," Porcina said dismissively, "but it's not a very important gas, can't cause you harm, so you don't need to worry about it."

"Would you still call it melting, though?" pressed the startling scholar.

"No, the term is sublimation," Porcina defined, labeling it on the blackboard.

"It doesn't sound very sublime to _me_," criticized the aforementioned girl.

But before Porcina could reply, class was mercifully dismissed, and the substitute was left with the cup of water on her desk. "Anybody want a drink?"

"Eh…No thanks."


End file.
